Satna (MP)/ New Delhi, Nov 10 (Bureau) Describing unemployment as “the bane of modern India,” erstwhile Congress President Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that the fault does not lie in the “world’s most energetic, hardworking and intelligent youths but in the government of the day.” Addressing a rally in this district of election-bound Madhya Pradesh, the visiting leader narrated, “I once met a young porter at a railway station and commenced a conversation. I asked him what his dream was prior to fate forcing him to don the red uniform of a coolie.” Mr Gandhi’s surprise knew no bounds when the youngster told him that he possessed a degree in Civil Engineering! “Despite having paid a king’s ransom to a private college for his education, he did not obtain employment. This is the country’s truth.
Ironically, the new generation actually desires to make the nation robust but tycoons do not give jobs,” he underlined. Earlier, lakhs of small traders, those running small and medium businesses or manufacturing units and managing shops were sources of employment but after assuming the Centre’s reins, the Narendra Modi dispensation commenced an assault on these units through the two-pronged weapon of demonetisation and GST, the Congress bigwig alleged, adding that, for the first time since Independence, the peasant is having to pay tax, namely GST that is 18 percent on pesticide, 12 percent on tractors and 5 percent on fertiliser. In this state’s context, he reiterated that 18,000 ryots reeling under debt ended their very existence during 18 years of BJP rule. “Hapless cultivators are compelled to sell their plots. Today, Madhya Pradesh’s tiller experiences trepidation as the economy has quite simply stalled,” Mr Gandhi emphasised.